Understanding
by AHGrayLensman
Summary: Ever wonder why Shinji's so attached to his SDAT? And what's on that tape, anyway? Asuka begins to wonder these same things after Shinji is absorbed by Unit01... Set during episodes 20 and after.
1. Understanding

"Understanding"

by AHGrayLensman

Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of "Possession" (Sarah MacLachlan), "Run" (Collective Soul/Ed Roland), "My Immortal" (Evanescence/Ben Moody, Amy Lee, & David Hodges), and "Understanding" (Evanescence/Ben Moody & Amy Lee) are similarly the property of their respective authors. I liked all these works well enough to buy it, so please don't sue me from borrowing for them a little.

Ever wonder why Shinji's so attached to his SDAT? And what's on that tape, anyway? Asuka begins to wonder these same things after Shinji is absorbed by Unit-01... Side-story during episode 20.

Rated PG for some profanity.

* * *

THE SECOND DAY

Asuka lay fuming on her futon when the phone rang. She stormed over to the phone and angrily answered it. "WHAT?!?!"

It was Misato. She was babbling something about Rei being alright.

"I know Wonder-girl's OK, Misato! Don't call me for such a stupid reason!"

She slammed the phone back in its cradle and cast herself face-down onto the futon, then pulled a pillow over her head.

"I couldn't do anything... I was outdone by that idiot Shinji... I can't stand it!"

Asuka wanted nothing so much as to take out her frustrations on the aforesaid idiot... but that wasn't possible. Something had happened when Unit-01 went berserk and destroyed the Fourteenth Angel... something terrible. Misato hadn't been entirely clear about what had happened to Shinji, but Asuka had gathered that somehow he'd been absorbed into Unit-01. Misato had become even more evasive when Asuka asked if they had a plan for getting him out...

It suddenly hit Asuka that she might never see Shinji again, that he might be trapped in Unit-01 forever. For all her complaining about him, she missed him.

"It's only because I'll be stuck eating Misato's cooking if he's really gone for good," she tried to convince herself aloud. It was not a very effective self-deception, though. She'd known better for quite a while, ever since Shinji had used Unit-01 to pluck her and Unit-02 from that volcano after the failed attempt to capture the Eighth Angel a few months go. It was something she would have vigorously denied if she'd been asked about it openly, but there it was: she did care about him.

Without really knowing why, Asuka roused herself out of bed and walked across the darkened apartment to Shinji's room. She regarded the "Shin-chan's Lovely Suite" sign on the door for a moment before she slid it open.

The room beyond was almost pitch-black, since there were no windows or room lights on, and only minimal ambient light coming in from outside. However, she saw a lump on top of the bed, and for a split second Asuka thought it might've all been a dream, that she'd found him here, silently asleep. She groped blindly against the wall, trying find the light switch. When the lights did come up, Asuka had to shield her eyes for a few seconds as her eyes adjusted to the light.

The lump on the bed wasn't Shinji; it was a small suitcase. Shinji, being the idiot that he was, had apparently forgotten it when the alarms for the Angel attack sounded. Misato had gotten a call about it yesterday and picked it up from the train station where it was found. She must've left it in here.

"He was supposed to leave... but he came back. He swore he'd never pilot the Eva again, but he did anyway and look where it got him. Why'd he do it?" Asuka angrily forced back the tears she could feel coming on. She'd sworn never to cry again, certainly not for her idiot roommate.

She noticed Shinji's omnipresent SDAT player sticking out of a pocket at one end of the suitcase. She'd never understood why he was so attached to it. It was so outdated that it must've been almost impossible to find tapes for it; everybody used portable music players with flash memory cards or holographic storage these days... Come to think of it, she'd never even seen him change the tape. Knowing Shinji, he might only have one.

"I wonder what the heck that idiot listens to when he hides inside this thing..."

At that moment, she heard the front door slide open and saw the lights in the living room come up; Misato must be home. Asuka braced herself for the inevitable question.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN SHINJI'S ROOM?!?!?!" Misato bellowed.

"Nothing! I couldn't sleep... and it's not like there's anything in here anyway!" Asuka replied haughtily.

"I put Shinji's bag in there on the bed after I got it back from the train station yesterday," growled back Misato, sounding only slightly less irate.

"Yeah, I noticed. Any news... about Shinji?"

"No... I'll tell you as soon as I find out anything myself, Asuka," came Misato's flat reply.

"...OK..." Asuka said quietly.

"Asuka, I'm sorry I snapped at you just now. I'm just really stressed out with... everything that's going on. I know that's no excuse, but I'm sorry. I'd appreciate it you stayed out of Shinji's room, though."

Asuka said nothing for a few moments. "Misato...?" she finally asked hesitantly.

"What is it, Asuka?"

"Do you think Shinji would mind if I borrowed his SDAT player? Just till he gets back?"

"No, I don't think he'd mind. Don't you have a digital Walkman of your own, though?" Misato asked.

"Yeah, but..." Asuka trailed off. She really didn't want to have to explain her curiosity to Misato.

Misato considered her request for a moment. "OK, just be careful with it, and for heaven's sake, don't tape over anything. As far as I know, Shinji only has that one tape."

"OK, I'll be careful with it. 'night Misato, I'm gonna try to go back to sleep."

"Good night, Asuka. I'll call you as soon as I know anything about Shinji."

"Thanks. 'Night." Asuka said sleepily as she retreated into her own room with the SDAT player in hand.

After Asuka's door closed, Pen-Pen poked his head out of his fridge as if curious. Misato looked over at him and asked, "What the heck was that about, anyway?" The penguin seemed to shrug in response.

* * *

THE THIRD DAY

Misato slid open the door to Asuka's room. "Asuka, get up. It's time to go to school."

The lumps under the blankets began to shift, then stopped abruptly. "Whaaaaa... Misato, it's Sunday you idiot!"

"Oh, right... Sorry." The slight grin on Misato's face hinted that she wasn't nearly as sorry as she claimed to be. "Anyway, I'm headed in to Headquarters. I'll call you if I find out anything about Shinji."

"OK..."

"I'll probably be at work until late, so go ahead and order takeout from that Chinese place around the corner. I left some money on the counter, so make sure you save some for me."

"OK, thanks."

"I'll see you tonight, Asuka."

"OK, bye." Asuka mumbled as she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

After about ten minutes without success, Asuka concluded that it was probably time to get up. She stumbled out of her room and toward the bathroom, half-expecting to see Shinji in the kitchen making breakfast.

"Scheissekopf, of course he's not here..." she chided herself aloud. Oh great, now she was talking to herself. Isn't that supposed to be a sign of insanity?

After showering and getting dressed, Asuka fired up the apartment's computer (which she would've considered woefully underpowered for her under normal circumstances) and looked up the make and model of Shinji's SDAT player. She hoped that if she could find a new one, or new tapes for his old one, she would surprise Shinji with it if... no, **when** he got back. Unfortunately, she'd been right last night; SDAT players hadn't been made in 8 or 9 years, and tapes for them were somewhat hard to find outside of speciality shops. Leave it to Shinji to use a nearly extinct recording format. SDATs had apparently not been used very much for commercially produced music, so the tape in Shinji's player was clearly a mix tape... but who made it? Shinji? Maybe his former teacher? Or somebody else...?

She decided to fall back to her Plan B, which was to make Shinji a new mix tape. One shop in Toyko-3 claimed to stock the same type of 80-minute SDAT media as Shinji's existing mix tape, although they were a bit expensive; shorter 60-minute SDAT media was also available. The problem was, she had no idea what kind of music he liked. She knew he played some classical pieces on his cello, but other than that, she knew almost nothing about his musical tastes.

All Asuka really had to go on was what was on Shinji's mix tape, but unlike her digital player the recordings on the SDAT didn't include metadata like the names of the song and artist. She began listening to it for a second time; she'd started listening to it when she went to bed the night before, but she'd fallen asleep after the first two or three songs, which were all somber classical pieces she didn't recognize. She hoped the whole tape wasn't like that.

The tape was just over a minute into track 04, an instrumental with piano and electric guitar that she found herself liking quite a bit, when the phone rang. She stopped the SDAT and practically leapt across the room to answer the phone. "Hello?!?!?"

"Hi Asuka, this is Hikari."

"...Oh... Hi, Hikari."

"What's wrong?"

"...Nothing. Misato said she'd called if she found out anything about Shinji, and I thought this might've been her."

"Did something happen to Ikari?!?!"

"There was... an accident with Shinji's Eva after the last battle. I don't think I'm allowed to tell you more than that, sorry." Asuka hated to hold out on her best friend like this, but Misato had made it very clear in her debriefing after the last battle that Asuka was not to tell civilians any specifics about what had happened to Shinji... especially not Kensuke. The little four-eyed geek made Section 2 extremely nervous for some reason.

"Is he OK? He wasn't hurt like Suzahara, was he?" Hikari was seriously worried about all the Eva pilots' safety after what had happened to Toji at the hands of EVA-01's dummy plug. While Toji had a special place in the class rep's heart, she considered all the Eva pilots her friends, even Rei.

"...I don't know. Misato said she'd call when she found out anything."

"Oh... I'm sorry Asuka, this must be tearing you apart... I just called to ask if you wanted to come over. You can, if you want."

"Sorry Hikari, I should probably stay here, in case Misato calls. You can come over here if you want, though. I could use the company."

"OK, I'll be over in a little while. See you then!" Hikari said before hanging up.

"Well," Asuka mused to herself, "I guess I'll have to listen to Shinji's stupid SDAT later."

* * *

THE FOURTH DAY

The teacher was, as usual, droning on and on about how much life had changed because of the Second Impact. Asuka didn't mind, though. She was working on a little project of her own.

While she had been waiting for Hikari to come over the day before, Asuka realized that she could easily copy the contents of Shinji's SDAT onto the apartment computer or her own portable music player. She made copies on both, with the computer copies squirreled away in a hidden directory and heavily encrypted. Someone would have needed to borrow the Magi even to figure out what the files were.

So, as she and Hikari had talked, gossiped, and generally acted like normal teenage girls, Asuka had her music player plugged into Misato's stereo system, quietly playing its copy of the SDAT's contents in the background.

"Asuka, what's with the music? I didn't know you liked classical..."

"Oh, it's an extra credit assignment for my music class. The teacher gave me 26 songs to identify." Asuka had come up with the fib when she remembered that Hikari was taking home economics rather than music this year.

"Well, I'll help you out with it a little if I can, but I'm not much use on this classical stuff..."

Asuka was suddenly brought back from her reverie into the present by a half-heard question from the teacher.

"...I'm sorry sensei, could you repeat the question?"

"Miss Soryu, I asked if you had any thoughts comparing what I've been talking about here in Japan with conditions in your native Germany."

"Uh..."

It was going to be a long day at school...

* * *

Despite the teacher's attempt at ambushing her with economics, Asuka made a fair amount of progress at identifying a couple of the songs from Shinji's SDAT while she was at school. She made even more progress after she got back to the apartment.

Twelve of the 26 tracks were classical pieces; some, like the "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Die Valkyrie", she recognized, while others she did not. Another six were modern jazz or rock instrumentals, including the one she'd been listening to when Hikari has called yesterday. The remaining eight were pop songs, four of which were in Japanese, with three in English and one in what sounded to her like Spanish or Italian. She'd decided to start with the songs in Japanese, since it would be easier to search for lyrics on the net than for music. She started feeding lines she was able to recognize from the songs into a lyrics search engine.

She found the last track, number 26, almost immediately. It was very odd; while the lyrics were in Japanese, the title was in German. The lyrics were rather... disturbing, and Asuka couldn't shake the feeling that the female singer sounded sort of like Wonder-girl for some reason. Most disturbing of all was the title, though: "Komm Susser Tod." Come, sweet death...

Asuka pushed aside the dark visions of dolls and nooses which followed **that** thought and started to work on the English songs instead.

One, the track just after the instrumental she liked from the previous day in fact, was called "Possession", by a Canadian singer/songwriter named Sarah McLachlan. It seemed to about an unrequited love that bordered on obsession:

_And I would be the one_

_To hold you down,_

_Kiss you so hard_

_I'll take your breath away,_

_And after I wipe away the tears,_

_Just close your eyes, dear._

It had apparently been moderately popular in North America for a while during the mid-'90s, several years before Second Impact. It was a bit mellower than Asuka's standard musical tastes, but she really liked it.

The second, appearing some where in the middle of the tracks, was called "Run", by an American rock band called Collective Soul. Asuka couldn't quite make out what it was supposed to be about:

_Are these times contagious?_

_I've never been this bored before._

_Is this the prize I've waited for?_

_Now as the hour passing,_

_There's nothing left here to insure._

_I long to find a messenger._

So far as she could tell, it had been popular in 1999, just a few months before Second Impact. Asuka found it merely OK.

She was about to dig into finding the last English track when the phone rang. She again raced across the apartment to answer it, nearly flattening a hapless Pen-Pen in the process.

"Hello?!?!?" Asuka answered breathlessly.

"Asuka, it's Misato." The older woman sounded exhausted.

"Misato! Why didn't you come home last night? What's going on with Shinji?" Asuka practically screamed at the receiver.

"That's why I'm calling now. You'd better sit down, Asuka."

Oh God. Something must be **really** wrong...

"OK, what's going on?" Asuka asked nervously after sitting down.

"The good news is that Ritsuko and Maya think they have a procedure for getting Shinji out of Unit-01." Misato's tone belied serious misgivings with their plan.

"What's the bad news?" Asuka asked as her dread grew.

"A couple things, unfortunately. It'll take them almost a month to get it ready, for one thing."

"OK, so it takes a while to get the idiot out... What's wrong with that, aside from me having to eat your awful cooking for a while longer?"

Misato ignored the bait. "The last time they tried this, the procedure failed and the pilot... died."

"THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE?!?!? TO WHO?!?!?" Asuka asked furiously.

"Shinji's mother. She was killed in a contact experiment with Unit-01 in 2004."

Asuka was speechless, almost physically ill. Part of her mind dimly realized this was why Misato had told her to sit down.

"Asuka, are you still there?"

"...Yeah... Misato, we're going to lose him, aren't we?" Asuka asked shakily as she choked back tears.

"Asuka, calm down. Ritsu's pretty sure she's found all the mistakes they made last time."

"But what if she's wrong...?"

"You can't think like that, Asuka. Look, I have a few things I need to take of here, but I'll be home in about two hours. We'll talk more then. Have you eaten yet?"

"No, I'm not really hungry." In truth, Asuka didn't think she _could_ eat anything with how she felt right now.

"Are you sure? I'll pick up you something on my way back from Headquarters if you want."

"No really, I'm not hungry Misato."

"OK. Hang in there, kiddo. I'll be home in a couple hours."

"OK. Bye, Misato."

"Bye, Asuka."

Asuka hung up the phone and lay her head down on the table for a few minutes to collect herself. Trying desperately not to think about what Misato had just told her, Asuka went back to working on tracking down the last English song on Shinji's SDAT, as if that might somehow improve the odds of his recovery.

The last English song, Asuka found, had been popular in late 2003 and early 2004. It was a haunting piano ballad by an American band called Evanescence, one of the first really popular musical acts to appear after mankind started to rebuild from Second Impact. The name of the song was "My Immortal".

Asuka loved the singer's voice... but she was crushed when she realized the song was a goodbye to a lost loved one:

_I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone,_

_But though you're still with me,_

_I've been alone all along._

Tears stinging her eyes again, Asuka quickly retreated into her bedroom and tried to go to sleep.

* * *

THE FIFTH DAY

Asuka slowly opened her eyes and rolled over to look at the clock. 7:12am.

"OH SHIT, I HAVE A 7:30 HARMONICS TEST!!!" she yelled as she realized just how late she was going to be. She threw off her covers and bolted out of the door to her room, where she collided bodily with Misato. "DAMN IT MISATO, OUT OF THE WAY!!! I'M GONNA BE LATE!!!"

"Calm down, Asuka. That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about last night -- with Units 00 and 02 still under repairs, and with Ritsuko and Maya tied up working on the extraction procedure for Shinji, harmonics and synchronization tests are cancelled until further notice."

"Oh great, now you tell me!"

"Well, if you'd stayed up till I got home last night like I thought you were, I would've told you then! It's not like I was out till all hours... I think I was home before 10, and you were already asleep by then!"

"But what if an Angel attacks?"

"If that happens in the next three weeks, we're screwed. The only Eva capable of fighting right now is Unit-01, and after what happened in the last battle, the brass ordered it put into cryostasis. Ritsu thinks the repair crews will have Unit-02 back online in three weeks or so."

"Oh... I suppose I should start getting ready for school then."

"Hey, as far as your school knows, you still have a harmonics test today. I won't tell if you won't..." Misato said, winking at her and grinning. "Besides, you must've had a rough day yesterday if you were out by the time I got home."

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really." Asuka had no intention of telling Misato what she'd been doing last night, as it would bring up too many uncomfortable subjects.

"Well, if you change your mind, let me know Asuka... Hey, I have an idea! Let me check on something." Misato picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Kaji, this is Misato." Asuka instantly perked up at the mention of Kaji's name. "I'm fine, thanks. How busy are you today? Oh, good. Would you mind if Asuka stopped by for a while? OK, great. I'll bring her by when I come in to Headquarters in a little while."

Asuka was a little confused by this turn of events, but it meant that she would be spending time with Kaji so she tried not to think about it too much.

"Kaji says he can spend some time with you today, so you'd better go get ready. I leave for work in 20 minutes." Misato never saw Asuka move so fast in all her life.

* * *

"So, how's my favorite Eva pilot doing these days?" Kaji asked a beaming Asuka after they had taken their seats on the commuter train that ran between the Geofront complex and Tokyo-3's eastern edge. They were headed to a mall on that side of town that had made it unscathed through the last couple Angel attacks.

"Much better now that I'm with you." Asuka replied, smiling broadly.

"That's good. How's Katsuragi holding up after... what's happened?"

The smile left Asuka's face. "This morning is the first I've seen her in a couple days. She's been at Headquarters all the time... probably fussing over **her** favorite, that idiot Shinji."

Kaji was visibly upset by her response. "Asuka, let me ask you something... If your place was switched with Shinji's and you were the one trapped in the Eva, do you think Misato would be spending as much time at work as she is now?"

"No! And if she did, it would only be because it's her job!"

"Then you don't know Misato very well. Give her a little more credit than that."

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes after that. Asuka felt stung; that was the closest thing to a rebuke Kaji had ever given her.

Kaji finally broke the silence by changing the subject. "So, are we looking for anything in particular this time? You're not going to subject me to the swimsuit section again, are you?" he asked with a look of mock horror.

"No, I'm looking for some music this time." Asuka decided that the ruse she'd used with Hikari would probably work on Kaji as well. "My music teacher gave me a bunch of songs to identify as an extra credit project, and I kinda like some of them so I'd like to get them on audio disc. I'm having trouble identifying a couple of them, though... Do you think you could listen to them?"

"Well, sure, but I can't make any promises. NERV didn't hire me as a musicologist, you know."

"Here, listen to this..." Asuka handed her mentor the headphones of her portable music player and started playing back the song she thought was in Italian.

"Hmmm... I've heard this before, but it was in English. You'd like the band; it's a German group called Blind Guardian. I used to listen to them in high school."

"Why are they singing in Italian if they're German?"

"I think it's Spanish, actually; they did most of their music in English, but they sometimes did songs in other languages. If I remember right, the name of the song in English is 'Harvest of Sorrow'. It's based on Tolkien."

"Tolkien... The man who wrote those _Lord of the Rings _movies they started making before Second Impact?"

"Well, he wrote the novel those were based on, but yeah. The guys in Blind Guardian were huge _Lord of the Rings_ fans, and they wrote a bunch of songs about it. This one's based on a story in another Tolkien book called the _Silmarillion_."

"OK, thanks... How about this one?" Asuka switched to the guitar-and-piano instrumental she'd liked so much.

"I've heard this before too... It's called 'State of Grace', I think. Asuka, where did you find this?" Kaji asked, with a strange intensity she'd never seen from him before.

"My music teacher gave it to me..." Asuka found Kaji's sudden focus a bit unnerving, especially in light of her deception. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I've overheard Commander Ikari listening to this on business trips, and I'm sure you can imagine how... singular the Commander's tastes are."

Asuka tried to hide the shock that she was sure was written all over her face.

* * *

THE EIGHTH DAY

Asuka was beginning to reconsider the whole make-a-new-SDAT-for-Shinji idea.

It wasn't for lack of source material; Asuka had bought three Sarah McLachlan discs, one Collective Soul disc, two Blind Guardian discs, and three Evanescence discs during her shopping expedition with Kaji a couple days ago, to supplement her own music collection. She was pretty sure that two of the Evanescence discs were bootlegs, but they had several songs that weren't on the one disc she was reasonably sure **wasn't** a bootleg, so she didn't mind as much. She's also picked up a disc called _Liquid Tension Experiment_, which a clerk at the music store had thought (correctly) was the source of "State of Grace".

No, Asuka's problems with this project were two-fold. The first and lesser of the two was that if she were to give Shinji this mix tape in person, he might take it as a sign of romantic interest on her part, and she definitely didn't want to head down that road... not right now, anyway. She _might_ consider it if Shinji came back with some backbone **and** stopped showing her up as an Eva pilot, especially now that Kaji was seemingly off the market thanks to Misato. However, she'd had more than enough of the "newlyweds" catcalls from Shinji's stooge friends as it was. In any case, Asuka decided it would be best to give the tape to Shinji anonymously to reduce the number of potential... complications. She hadn't decided it it would be better to leave it here in the apartment or at school, though.

The larger problem facing her was Kaji's revelation that Commander Ikari listened to at least some of the same music as was on Shinji's SDAT. That raised the possibility that Shinji's father had made the tape for Shinji, and the last thing Asuka wanted to do was give Shinji yet another reminder of his father. But if the tape and the SDAT player were from Commander Ikari, Asuka found it hard to believe that Shinji would've kept them after the incident with Toji and Unit-03; Shinji had been so angry at his father that he was ready to blow up NERV Headquarters just to get at the man.

There was something else bothering Asuka too, although she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. The fact that all of the songs were at least ten years old seemed a little weird for a teenager's mix tape, even that of a teenager as messed up as Shinji. Most of them were from before the Second Impact, and the most recent was from 2004... then it hit her.

Shinji's mother had died in 2004.

"Mein Gott... The SDAT must've been his mother's! No wonder he's so attached to it."

Asuka didn't have any proof of this, but she knew she was right. Everything fit, from Shinji's attachment to it to the dates of the music and the Commander's listening to the same music.

She had never realized how similar she and Shinji were before... Both had lost their mothers to Project E. Both had absentee fathers who only acknowledged their respective child's existence when it suited them. They had reacted in opposite ways to their situation -- Shinji with introversion, Asuka with self-aggrandizement -- but it was the same essential loneliness and need for acceptance that drove them both.

She thought for a while longer, then made a list:

1. "Paradigm Shift", Liquid Tension Experiment

2. "Good Enough", Sarah McLachlan

3. "Broken", Seether

4. "Precious Declaration", Collective Soul

5. "Building a Mystery", Sarah McLachlan

6. "Haunted", Evanescence

7. "Schism", Tool

8. "Imaginations from the Other Side", Blind Guardian

9. "Understanding", Evanescence

10. "Full of Grace", Sarah McLachlan

Asuka thought the next-to-last song summed up her relationship with Shinji, such as it was, pretty well:

_The pain that grips you,_

_The fear that binds you,_

_Releases life in me._

_In our mutual shame we hide our eyes_

_To blind them from the truth that finds a way to who we are._

Asuka grinned as she started dubbing songs onto the blank SDAT she'd bought. She would do something nice for Shinji and probably expand his horizons with regard to rock music at the same time.

* * *

THE THIRTY-THIRD DAY

Shinji was still a bit wobbly on his feet as he got out of Misato's car and made his way to the elevator lobby of their apartment building. Misato was hovering just behind him like a mother hen. The NERV hospital had released him and pronounced him fit for duty, following 36 hours of observation and tests after his extraction from Unit-01.

Misato turned to him after they got on the elevator. "Shinji, are you sure you don't want me to stay with you this afternoon? I can call work and tell them I'm not coming in..."

"Misato, I'm fine; I'll be OK. You've probably got a million things to take care of at Headquarters, too."

"Well yeah, but you're an important part of my job, you know?"

"Yeah, I know... Hey, where's Asuka today? Did she have a sync test or something?"

"No, she's at school. I gave her the option to take today off and come with me to get you, but she said she had too many exams coming up to miss any more class."

Shinji sighed; he'd been alternately looking for forward to and dreading seeing the German girl again. "That's OK; I'm so tired I'll probably just sleep all afternoon anyway."

They got off the elevator and walked over to the door of their apartment. Misato unlocked and opened the door for Shinji. "I've got to head back to Headquarters, but I want you to call me immediately if you're not feeling well. Asuka should be back around 6, and I gave her strict orders to be nice to you for a few days."

"OK..." Shinji replied noncommittally.

Misato looked at the boy for a moment, then bear-hugged him. "It's good to have you back, kiddo."

"Th...Thanks." Shinji felt a bit embarrassed by her show of affection.

"Now go get some rest. I'll see you tonight." Misato waved to him as she turned and headed back toward the elevator.

Shinji made his way across the apartment and almost to his room before he was attacked by an overjoyed warm-water penguin. "Hi Pen-Pen, I've missed you too."

After detaching Pen-Pen from his leg, Shinji opened the door to his room. It was empty, which was pretty much how he'd left it, with two exceptions: his small suitcase, which he realized with a start that he'd left at the train station what seemed like a lifetime ago; and a note on his desk, which read:

_Dear Shinji,_

_Welcome back; I've missed you. Hope you like the new SDAT._

_Love,_

_Your secret admirer_

Underneath the note was an SDAT labeled "For Shinji."

Shinji took the SDAT, placed it in his player, and pressed the Play button as he lay down for a nap. A small smile stole across his face as he drifted off to sleep.

The smile was still there when Asuka looked in on him a few hours later and said quietly, "Welcome home, Shinji."


	2. Solitude

"Solitude"

by AHGrayLensman

Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of "Solitude" (Evanescence/Ben Moody & Amy Lee) are similarly the property of their respective authors. I liked each of these works well enough to buy it, so please don't sue me from borrowing for them a little.

This is a sequel/continuation of "Understanding", which originally written as a one-shot. Several reviewers on asked me if I would consider writing more, and so I have. This chapter will cover episode 22, as well as a little bit of aftermath from episode 21. My long-term plan is to have this series cover most of _Eva _TV episodes 20-26 and the film _End of Evangelion_, plus a little epilogue.

"Spoken"

'Thought'

/Image from 15th Angel/

Rated PG for some profanity. The rating will likely creep up to R in later chapters, as it's almost impossible to deal with some of EoE's themes in a PG or PG13 context.

Many thanks to bobbomp for pre-reading this.

* * *

Asuka knew something was wrong from the second she walked in the door of the apartment.

She'd gone over to Hikari's for dinner (and the obligatory gossip session) after school. That was partly to appease Misato, who'd insisted that she needed to cut Shinji some slack after his month-long ordeal in Eva Unit-01. Asuka had found that was often easiest to do that by simply absenting herself from the apartment, so that she wasn't around for Shinji to provoke. She knew Shinji didn't **mean** to make her angry, but something about the boy's meek demeanor pushed her buttons in all the wrong ways.

'Damn it, if the idiot would just grow a spine...'

Ordinarily, she'd have expected to find Shinji dutifully studying at the kitchen table, with Misato either at work or sitting around drinking and teasing Shinji. Instead, the first thing she noticed when the apartment door opened was the sound of Misato crying... no, weeping. She'd seen Misato crying once before, when Shinji and Eva-01 were recovered after escaping (and eviscerating) the Twelfth Angel, but this seemed much more profound and bitter.

'I haven't heard someone that upset since... since Mama died. Misato's pretty tough; who or what could've hurt her like that?'

The answer seemed pretty obvious: Ryoji Kaji.

'Maybe he broke things off with her...?'

Misato's bedroom door was closed, and based on the sounds emanating from behind it Misato was in no condition to explain what was going on. Shinji's door, on the other hand, was open. Asuka poked her head in and was about to call to him when she saw that he was curled up on his futon with his pillow over his head.

'What the hell happened?!?!?!?'

"Shinji... What's going on? Why is MIsato so upset?" Asuka asked quietly. Shinji didn't respond, which in and of itself came very close to setting Asuka off. If there was one thing the redhead hated more than anything, it was being ignored.

'Oh great, the idiot's lost in his SDAT again. And to think I encouraged this behavior by giving him another tape to listen to...'

"Shinji!" Asuka called, louder this time but still not as loud as she would've under normal circumstances. He appeared to notice this time, and rolled over and sat up.

"About time! What the hell is...?" Asuka's impending rant trailed off as she saw the look in Shinji's eyes. He looked like a puppy that had been spanked repeatedly for something it didn't do.

"Asuka, I... I think something bad may've happened to Kaji. Misato's really upset, and I don't know what to do."

"He probably just broke things off with her. She'll be OK in a couple days."

"This seems a lot more serious than that..." Shinji said sheepishly.

"Are you contradicting me?!?!" Asuka growled. With that, Shinji seemed to back down, and he laid back down on his futon and put his ear buds back in.

Asuka left his room and headed back to her own. While she was externally calm, her mind had started working through possible interpretations of Shinji's phrase _something bad_, and some of them were quite bad indeed given Kaji's line of work. She decided to ignore the worst of them until she had a better idea what was going on.

* * *

Asuka decided to try calling Kaji again while she waited on the train home from the Geofront. The result was unfortunately the same as her previous four attempts that day: an automated voice saying, "I'm sorry, the telephone number you just dialed is not currently in use. Please try again."

"That's strange, I still can't get through. I wonder if he went somewhere again?" Shinji's 'something bad' theory was beginning to look more ominous and likely. Asuka looked across the train station to distract herself from that unpleasant thought and spied Shinji standing at the stop from another train line looking very serious... and talking to Wonder-girl. That was not exactly a sight Asuka had particularly wanted to see.

"Shinji was melted into his Eva for a whole month until just the other day... and he's totally back to his usual thing again. What's with him?"

Truth be told, Shinji had been seemingly unaffected by his month-long ordeal in Eva-01, at least physically. Emotionally he had seemed meeker and more withdrawn than he had been in months, all the progress he'd made after Asuka's arrival in Tokyo-3 seemingly blown away by the disaster with Toji and Eva-03. His regression had made Asuka furious almost beyond words.

Even worse from Asuka's viewpoint was that Shinji had not said anything to her about the new SDAT left for him by his "secret admirer". In fact, Shinji had not said a single word about it in Asuka's hearing and had barely said two words to Asuka at all since his return. (Asuka had of course made this harder by being around the apartment less than usual, but in her mind that was immaterial.) Shinji's presence with Wonder-girl at the train station, waiting for a train bound for Wonder-girl's apartment rather than his own, could only mean one thing...

Unbidden, the words of a song to which Asuka had recently listened came to mind:

_Your secret admirer,_

_Who could it be?_

_Oh, can't you see?_

_All along it was me._

_How can you be so blind_

_As to see right through me?_

"Fine, so I've lost. You're just a..." Asuka's train of thought was suddenly derailed by a massive abdominal cramp that made her almost double over in pain.

Damn it, why did that have to start now...?

-----

On the other side of the train station, Shinji had not noticed Asuka at all. All his concentration was focused on trying to have a conversation with Rei, which was not exactly an easy thing to do under any circumstances.

"Rei, I'm kind of worried about Asuka. It seems like she's been avoiding me lately, and her sync scores have been dropping ever since I... got back."

"I agree. I will speak with her about this."

The prospect of Rei giving Asuka advice seemed like trying to put out a lit match with a gallon of gasoline to Shinji. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Do you have alternate suggestions?" Rei asked.

"Well, no..." Shinji replied. The only alternative was to talk to her himself, and that prospect scared him more than going into battle against an entire army of Angels.

* * *

Asuka was having the mother of all bad days. Her period was in full swing (complete with cramps), her last couple sync tests had been total disasters, she was pretty sure any hope she had with Shinji was completely shot to hell, and beneath all that was her nagging concern about not being able to reach Kaji. Then to top things off, Asuka found herself stuck in an elevator with Rei of all people. Asuka did her best to ignore the other girl.

Rei unexpectedly broke the uncomfortable silence. "The Eva won't move unless you open your mind."

"You're saying this is my fault?!?! I'm blocking myself?!?!"

"Yes. Eva has her own mind."

"That puppet?!?!?"

"You should know that."

Asuka didn't like where this was headed, so she decided to change the subject. "Fancy you starting a conversation! Maybe it'll snow tomorrow!"

Rei didn't respond, which caused Asuka's anger to grow exponentially.

"What, are you happy I'm having trouble with my Eva now? Well don't worry, when the next Angel shows up, our invincible Shinji will ride out and destroy it! They don't need us, just that idiot!"

Rei still gave no sign of response, which made Asuka both extremely pissed off and extremely confused -- pissed that Rei was seemingly ignoring her, and confused by the fact that Rei seemed genuinely (if clumsily) concerned about her. As she had with Shinji the previous night after accidently opening up to him about her step-mother, Asuka went on the offensive.

"First, I get Shinji's sympathy, and now from the Commander's doll. I must be doomed!"

Rei finally deigned to respond: "I am not a doll."

"You are! You do exactly what you're told! You'd kill yourself if the Commander told you to!"

"That's right." Rei replied flatly.

Asuka had finally had enough. She slapped Rei, hard.

"Then you are a doll! You're an unthinking, emotionless puppet! I hate you!" The elevator doors opened, and Asuka stormed off before Rei had a chance to say anything more.

'Mein Gott, I hate that little bitch! How dare she lecture **me** on how the Eva works?'

* * *

Asuka had been giving Eva-02 something approximating a pep talk when the alarm sirens began sounding.

Knowing that Unit-01 was still under a freeze order, Asuka assumed that she would be sent out on point and quickly boarded Unit-02's entry tube to prepare for battle. However, to her surprise Misato ordered Rei to take point and Asuka to back her up.

"Back up Unit-00?!?!? Me? You can't be serious! Eva Unit-02, launch!" The catapult engaged and rocketed Asuka's Eva to ground level. She could hear some discussion among the command staff of what to do with their wayward pilot over the radio, but that didn't concern Asuka -- it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Asuka took up her firing position and grabbed the positron rifle provided to her. She tried to clear her mind as she got herself set for a extreme long range shot at the Angel's position in orbit.

"If I screw this up, they'll never let me pilot again... No room for mistakes."

Asuka had almost lined up the Angel for a shot with the positron rifle when Eva Unit-02 was surrounded by a huge beam of light. Asuka could feel something -- almost certainly the Angel -- begin to gnaw away at her mind's defenses. Suddenly an image flashed before her mind's eye.

/loneliness/

Asuka screamed and began firing the positron rifle reflexively. The first two shots left the atmosphere but fell short of the Angel's position in orbit, while the next several shots slammed into the skyline of Tokyo-3. She quickly expended all the rifle's ammunition.

/mother/

"No! Don't! Don't come inside me! It hurts!"

/death/

"No! Don't look into my mind! Please!"

Misato tried to order Asuka to retreat, but Asuka refused. "No! Never! I'd rather die than retreat now!"

/double suicide/

Asuka started screaming almost continuously, as the Angel dug deeper into her psyche and showed her in graphic detail all the images and memories she had tried so hard to suppress from her conscious mind. There were many of them, and chief among them were her mother's suicide, her father's subsequent abandonment of her, and her secret fear that no one really cared about her.

Somehow, in the midst of it all was Shinji.

'Damn you, what are you doing here? You won't help me... You won't even hold me! You're nothing, **NOTHING** to me!'

/denial/

'No!'

The Angel seemingly lost its patience with her.

/father/

/mother/

/privation/

/insecurity/

/separation/

/evasion/

/contact/

/obsessive-compulsive/

/attachment behavior/

/dependence/

/emptiness/

/psychological breakdown/

/sympathy/

/pity/

/I am not a doll/

/mental contamination/

/don't violate me!/

/stop it!/

/die with me/

/no!/

/it hurts!/

/I hate you so much!/

/presumption/

/dormant/

/masculine protest/

/don't be/

/clearly present/

/reactive formation/

/shadow/

/opposition/

/reparations/

/don't be/

/momentary assimilation/

/don't be/

/rationalization/

/oblivion/

/deception/

/reason for existing/

/confidence/

/childhood experiences/

/sense of loss/

/reparations/

/coexistence/

/hostility/

/oppression/

/death/

/death/

/I hate you so much!/

"My mind's being eaten away... Kaji, it's unraveling my mind... What can I do? It's defiling my mind..."

/Kaji is dead/

**'NO!!!!'**

That was the last straw; Asuka simply couldn't take any more. Eva Unit-02 completely shut down, and she began screaming again as the Angel dug further into her psyche.

-----

Inside Central Dogma, debate raged over how to save Asuka. Rei had already tried a shot with a much more powerful positron rifle than Asuka's, to no avail. Shinji then had offered to retrieve her with Unit-01, only shouted down by Vice Commander Fuyutsuki. Finally, Commander Ikari ended the debate:

"It is unacceptable to lose Eva Unit-02 at this time. Rei, go to Terminal Dogma and get the Lance."

-----

After what seemed to Asuka to be an eternity of screaming, she saw the massive form of an Eva rising from a nearby exit shaft on the edge of her peripheral vision with a long, slender weapon that looked like some kind of gigantic spear. Because of the shaft of light surrounding her Eva, Asuka couldn't see the other Eva very well, but it **had** to be Unit-01. Shinji had finally come to rescue her.

The other Eva wound up and threw the huge spear in the direction of the shaft of light's source, the spear leaving the Eva's hand at such a great speed that it literally tore through the clouds. A few seconds later, Asuka felt the mental contact with the Angel slip away, and the shaft of light around Unit-02 disappeared. Whatever that spear the other Eva had used was, it must have obliterated the Angel.

Finally able to see clearly, Asuka looked over at the other Eva, expecting to see the massive purple-and-green frame of Unit-01. Instead, she was greeted by Unit-00's cyclopean blue form. Rei's even voice came over the radio. "Pilot Soryu, are you injured?"

'No. NO. **NO! ** NOT HER! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HER? WHY DID THAT LITTLE BITCH HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SAVE ME?!?!? WHY DIDN'T SHINJI SAVE ME LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES?!?!?'

-----

Shinji sheepishly walked up to the edge of the quarantine area around Asuka. He was still furious with his father for not being allowed to rescue Unit-02, but he was too concerned about Asuka's well-being to worry about that right now. He desperately hoped she was alright. From where he stood, it looked like she was fine physically.

"I'm glad you're OK, Asuka..."

"Shut up! There's nothing to be glad about! Of all the people, **Rei** had to be the one to save me?!?!? I had to be saved by **HER**?!?!? I would've rather died than be saved by her! I hate this! I hate her! I hate you, Shinji! **I HATE EVERYONE!**"

Not sure what else to do, Shinji silently left Asuka to her misery.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This has got to be one of the hardest parts of the _Eva_ story line to write for. There's always the temptation to let Asuka go off into uber-bitch mode, but I'm convinced that's not the person she is or wants to be, but rather the person she thinks she _has_ to be. (As far as I can tell, that's the whole point of the "That isn't the real me!" sequence in the director's cut of episode 22.) The other thing that makes this hard to write from Asuka's PoV is that the episode already covers Asuka's PoV in a fair amount of detail, so there's not much space left to fill in. That's why much of the dialogue here comes straight from either the English dub script or the English subtitles. I'm not entirely pleased with how it's come out, but it's at least serviceable.

There are two or three more chapters coming, eventually. The next one, "Missing", will be set during episode 23 (with a couple bits from episode 24 as well).


	3. Missing

"Missing"

by AHGrayLensman

Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of "Missing" (Evanescence/Ben Moody, Amy Lee, and David Hodges) are similarly the property of their respective authors. I liked each of these works well enough to buy it, so please don't sue me for borrowing from them a little.

This is a sequel/continuation of "Understanding". This chapter will cover episode 23, as well as a little bit of the director's cut of episode 24. I'm going to make one tiny change to the order of events in the Eva time line for the purposes of my story, which I hope you won't find too objectionable.

"Spoken" 'Thought'

Rated PG13 for profanity and mature themes. The rating will likely creep up to R in the next chapter, as it's almost impossible to deal with some of EoE's themes in a PG or PG13 context.

Many thanks to bobbomp and faithanne for pre-reading this.

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Hikari regarded her temperamental best friend with a certain amount of frustration as Asuka furiously pressed buttons on the video game controller.

She won't go to school, but she won't go home either. She just sits there and plays those stupid games.

"Hikari, I'm tired. Can I stay here again tonight?" Asuka asked, uncharacteristically quietly.

Hikari was so taken aback by the meekness of Asuka's tone of voice that it took her a few seconds to respond. "Sure. Let's go to bed."

The two girls wordlessly got ready for sleep. Under normal circumstances, both of them would've been chattering non-stop about school and boys, but the current circumstances were most definitely not normal. The awkward silence continued even after both girls had gotten into bed.

"I'm sorry, I'm inconveniencing you, aren't I?" Asuka finally asked, with the same odd meekness as before.

"No," Hikari responded quietly, "you're no trouble at all."

Asuka paused, as if organizing her thoughts. "When I failed piloting my Eva, I lost whatever value I had left. I hate that... but even more, I hate myself. Somehow, nothing really matters now."

Hikari was appalled by Asuka's admission. "Asuka, no! I don't think you're a failure. You've always done the best you could... You should be proud."

Asuka's only reply was a choked sob.

------

Hikari never had the nerve to ask Asuka what drove her from the Katsuragi household, assuming that it was her frustration with her failure as an Eva pilot. While that was certainly a factor, it wasn't the deciding one. What had finally driven Asuka out of the apartment she shared with Misato and Shinji was a fight between herself and Shinji the day before which had bordered on apocalyptic.

After Asuka was released from the quarantine following her mental assault, Shinji tried his best to help her in whatever way he could. Asuka took this as a sign of pity and reacted rather nastily, telling both him and Misato in no uncertain terms that she didn't want or need their pity... although she was perfectly willing to let Shinji take her part of the household chores on top of his own.

After a week of this, one morning Shinji started cooking breakfast for the two of them using his same old recipe, with which Asuka was rather bored.

Asuka sighed and said, "Shinji, don't you know how to make anything else for breakfast? I can't wait for Kaji to get back so he can take me to a real meal."

Shinji looked up from his cooking and locked eyes with her. "Asuka, Kaji's not coming back."

"What are you talking about? He just left town for a few days after he broke up with Misato," Asuka shot back, her gaze boring into Shinji's skull.

For once, Shinji didn't back down. "That's not true, and you know it. Kaji's dead," he replied flatly.

Asuka was so angry that she closed in on Shinji before he could react and slapped him, causing him to drop the pot of coffee he'd just finished making. "I don't want to hear that shit from you any more, idiot!" she screamed.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Kaji's gone!" Even though he was clearly angry, Shinji had the same broken look he'd worn that horrible night a couple weeks ago.

Asuka felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. "You're lying..." she whispered. However, the look in Shinji's eyes said otherwise. Unable to bear it, she ran away.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whether by chance or by design, the Sixteenth Angel chose to appear over Tokyo-3 ten minutes before a sync test involving all three Eva pilots was scheduled to begin. As a result, they were already suited up and ready to go when the alarms sounded. Misato was at a meeting with one of Asuka's teachers, so Ritsuko was was left in charge of the early stages of the operation. After a few minutes, a plan came down from Central Dogma: Rei's Unit-00 was to take point with a positron rifle and observe the Angel, with Asuka's Unit-02 kept ready for backup. Shinji's Unit-01 was still in suspension until further orders from Commander Ikari.

Asuka boarded Unit-02 with a certain amount of trepidation. Given her last two experiences in the Eva, she wasn't entirely sure why they needed her.

'Here I am, back in this seat... Why bother? I'll just be in the way...'

-----

Things were not going well for Rei on the surface. The Angel had gone through Unit-00's AT field almost instantly and then began to merge with the Eva, much like the Thirteenth had attempted to do. Rei was clearly in enormous pain, and Asuka expected to be sent out at any moment.

Misato's voice came over the command channel: "Eva Unit-02, roll out! Take some of the heat off of Rei!"

Asuka felt the powerful surge of launch, the abrupt stop of the catapult pad slamming home in the egress shelter nearest Rei's Eva, then... nothing.

"Asuka, move forward 300 meters and spread your AT field, then fire your pallet rifle into the target's rear section."

Nothing. The Eva simply refused to move.

Misato's voice came over the comm channel again, more insistent this time. "Asuka, move out now!"

"It won't move... It just won't move..." Asuka muttered in quiet frustration as she worked the control yokes in vain. She suddenly realized this must have been what Shinji had felt when Unit-01 had lost power in battle against the Fourteenth Angel a couple months ago.

"She's a sitting duck out there! Get her back in here, now!" Misato barked at the bridge techs, momentarily forgetting that the comm channel was still open.

Asuka had never felt so worthless as she did when Unit-02 began to sink back into the tunnel.

-----

As Unit-02 returned to the hangar, Asuka could hear snippets of chatter from Central Dogma.

"...severe bio-contamination..."

"...pilot can't last much longer..."

"...suspension... has been lifted... Send him out."

'You bastard! You wouldn't send him out for me, would you?!?!?!?'

Asuka pulled up the video and data feeds from the other Evas, giving her a virtual ringside seat to the horror unfolding above her.

Eva Unit-01 launched, but the serpentine Angel was on top of it as soon as its AT field was spread. The Angel shattered the Eva's pallet rifle and so Unit-01 was forced to grapple with it, initiating the early stages of the same bio-fusion process that Unit-00 was undergoing. Unit-01 drew its progressive knife and stabbed the Angel, which responded by trying to attach itself to the Eva's head. Then, as quickly as it had attacked, the Angel was seemingly dragged away from Unit-01.

Asuka was confused by this turn of events until she saw the data feed from Unit-00. Rei had apparently inverted her Eva's AT field to contain the Angel, but the amount of power needed to sustain that was far in excess of what the Eva's core was capable of delivering for any significant length of time. It didn't make any sense, unless...

'Mein Gott, she's going to self-destruct Unit-00 to kill the Angel.'

There had to be another way. Asuka willed herself to scream into the comm link.

'Wonder-girl... Rei, get out of there! Eject!'

Somehow though, the words refused to leave her lips. An instant later, a massive fireball boiled out of Eva Unit-00's core, consuming the Angel and a sizeable portion of Tokyo-3 in the process. Asuka saw a split second of the blast through one of Unit-01's external camera feeds before it was cut off by an electromagnetic pulse.

Several tense moments passed before communications were restored. When they came back, there were no signals from Unit-00... not even a distress beacon from the Eva's entry plug.

'Oh no.'

Even worse was the cockpit video feed from Unit-01, showing the look of abject shock and dismay on Shinji's face. If he'd looked broken before, he looked absolutely shattered now.

-----

The normally tedious post-battle procedures passed Asuka by in a blur. She still couldn't believe that she had failed so completely, or that Rei was really gone. As she showered and changed from her plug suit to street clothes in the women's locker room, she kept expecting to see Rei at the locker opposite hers out of the corner of her eye, and she had to repeatedly remind herself that Rei was gone. Asuka took her time in the locker room, to delay the inevitable dressing-down she expected to receive from Misato.

She finally exited the locker room to find Shinji sitting on the bench outside. As usual, he appeared to be lost in his SDAT, but he was staring at the floor with the same look of shock and disbelief he'd had since Unit-00 exploded.

"Shinji...?" Asuka asked hesitantly. He looked up at her briefly in response, then returned his gaze to the floor. His expression never changed.

'Shinji, I'm so sorry...'

Asuka was still searching for the words to express her sympathies when Misato arrived. Asuka flinched inwardly, expecting a tirade from Misato which never came. Instead, the older woman quietly said, "Come on kids, let's go home."

None of them said much on the trip home.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A day passed. Neither Misato nor Shinji left their respective rooms much; Asuka didn't leave hers at all.

From the confines of her room, Asuka could hear the phone ringing, followed by Misato answering it. She couldn't make out what was said, but Misato yelled for Shinji as soon as she hung up. They left the apartment within a minute or two after that, leaving Asuka alone in the apartment.

Though neither of her roommates had said as much, Asuka knew what they must both be thinking: Rei's death had been her fault. The reasoning underlying that conclusion seemed inescapable.

Rei had self-destructed Unit-00 to protect Shinji from the Angel.

Shinji had been sent to rescue Rei from the Angel because Asuka had failed to do so.

Rei had taken Asuka's place on point because Asuka had been defeated by both of the previous two Angels.

Ergo, Rei's presence on point, Shinji's being sent out to save her, and her subsequent death were all Asuka's fault.

'I killed her, just as surely as if I'd pulled out a gun and shot her myself.'

Asuka found that she couldn't bear to think of Rei as "Wonder-girl" any more. As she ran through the memories of every confrontation, argument, and testy exchange she'd had with Rei, two common themes emerged: first, that virtually every one had been initiated by herself rather than Rei; and second, that what she had taken for arrogance on Rei's part was, in fact, extreme shyness.

'That time on the elevator, just before the last Angel... she was trying to **help** me, and I practically spat it back in her face. She saved my life, and not only didn't I thank her, I complained that I would've rather died. I'm such a ungrateful bitch...'

Asuka's guilt was further compounded by the memory of seeing Rei and Shinji together at the train station a couple weeks ago. She didn't know exactly what was going on between them, but it was clear that Rei had cared deeply about Shinji... maybe even loved him. She had sacrificed herself to protect him.

'What was it that pastor friend of Mama's said? "No one has greater love than this: to lay down their life for another." Rei must have loved him after all.'

The idea that Asuka had taken someone who really loved Shinji away from him, after everything else that had happened to him, was almost unbearable to her. The very real possibility that he may have loved Rei back made it even worse. The shattered look on his face after the EMP cleared, and his near-catatonic state in the car ride home from the Geo-front, seemed to indicate he was taking Rei's death pretty hard.

'How can I face him after this? I don't think I can... I don't deserve to stay here any more.'

-----

Shinji's mind was still reeling from what he and Misato had just seen in Terminal Dogma as they returned to the apartment. He desperately needed to talk through what he'd seen with someone... but not just anyone. He needed to talk to Asuka. He'd been on rough terms with her lately, but Asuka needed to know the truth about Rei too. He hoped she hadn't decided to spend the night at Hikari's again.

The lights in the apartment were off, except for those in Asuka's room. The door to Asuka's room was open, which was strange; she almost never left it open. Shinji summoned all his courage and walked into Asuka's room, only to find it unoccupied. The bed did not appear to have been slept in, and the room was almost preternaturally neat by Asuka's standards. In fact, the only thing that looked out of place was Asuka's digital music player, sitting out on her desk in loop mode, playing the same song over and over. The low battery indicator on it blinked forlornly.

Shinji hesitantly picked up the headphones and listened:

_And if I bleed, I'll bleed_

_Knowing you don't care._

_And if I sleep just to dream of you,_

_I'll wake without you there._

_Isn't something missing?_

_Isn't something..._

_Even though I'm the sacrifice,_

_You won't try for me, no no._

_Though I'd die to know you love me,_

_I'm all alone._

_Isn't something missing?_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

The lyrics didn't register with Shinji at first, but he recognized the singer as one he'd heard on his SDAT, as well as on the new SDAT his "secret admirer" had given him while he was trapped in Unit-01. He knew full well that his secret admirer had to have been Asuka -- who else could've left him something in his room? -- but the time had never seemed right to thank her for the new SDAT. Just the thought of Asuka doing that for him made him smile slightly in spite of the enormous strain he was under... then his smile faded as he saw the note underneath her digital player.

_Misato and Shinji:_

_I'm so sorry; it's my fault that Rei is dead. Please don't try to find me._

_Asuka_

Shinji's hands began to shake as he finished reading the note and realized what it meant.

'Oh please, no... Please let this be some sick kind of joke. I don't think I could handle it if she's dead too.'

Shinji struggled to find his voice. "Misato, there's a note here... Asuka's gone. I think she may try to kill herself..."

"What!?!?!?!" Misato shot back. "Check the bathroom and see if she took any pills or razor blades with her! I'll call Section 2 and get them looking for her. With any luck, she won't have gotten very far." The older woman pulled out her mobile phone and frantically began dialing.

As he headed for the bathroom, Shinji mused glumly that if they **did** have any luck, it must have been all bad.

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Asuka wandered the ruins of Tokyo-3 for days, searching for she knew not what at first. As penance for what she had done, she didn't allow herself to eat, and she only slept when she collapsed from exhaustion. After a while, she lost all track of time in a haze of hunger and exhaustion.

Finally, she found what she was looking for in the gutted ruin of a house near the edge of the devastated part of Tokyo-3: a bathtub partially filled with water and a shattered mirror. She knew now what had to be done to expiate her sins.

'Like mother, like daughter.'

She stripped off her clothes, carefully folded them, and placed them on a chair next to the tub. She used a shard from the mirror to slash her wrists open, then lay down in the tub and waited to bleed out. The cuts on her wrists didn't hurt nearly as much as the hole in her heart.

'Sync ratio, zero percent. I'm not fit to be the Second Child any more. I have no reason left to live... and no one cares. Not Papa, not Mama, not even Shinji. There's no reason for me to go on living.'

As Asuka began to drift off, she heard a crash in the distance, then saw the massive silhouette of what had to be a Section 2 agent. "Asuka Langley Soryu?" he asked with obvious disgust.

Asuka had one last thought before exhaustion and blood loss drove consciousness from her.

'I'm such a failure... I even failed to kill myself.'

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: My apologies to anybody who's read this far and is disappointed that something that started out so WAFFy has turned so dark, but that's how the _Eva _timeline goes. Unfortunately it's going to get worse before it gets better, as I'm sure you know if you seen the last two episodes or _End of Evangelion_.

There are two more chapters coming, whenever I get the time and inspiration to write them. The next one, "The Last Day", will be set during the first half of _End of Evangelion_.


	4. So Close

"So Close"  
by AHGrayLensman

Disclaimer: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. Please don't sue me for borrowing from it a little.

"Spoken"

'Thought'

/ Mental contact /

Rated R for violence, profanity, mature themes, and some sexual content. Many thanks to faithanne for pre-reading this.

* * *

As he had every day for the last week, Shinji arrived at room 303 of the NERV hospital at exactly 3:30pm. He stood outside the closed door for a moment, unsure what to do, just as he had done on the previous six days. He probably would have left after a few minutes of dithering, as he had also done previously, if fate had not intervened. 

A middle-aged nurse spotted him, walked up behind him, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Son, are you here to see someone?" she asked.

Shinji jumped slightly at her touch, then turned and looked at the floor in embarrassment. "My roommate is in there, but I'm not sure if she'd want to see me..."

The nurse regarded him with a look of sympathy. "I'm sure she'd want company if she were awake. Nobody has come by to see her since she was brought here, except you. How about I let you in so you can talk to her for a while?"

"...Thank you," Shinji replied hesitantly.

"Let me make sure she's presentable before you go in. I should warn you that she's been in a coma since they brought her here, but the doctors say she could come out of it at any time. I'm sure a visit from a friend like you will help."

'Yeah, I'm such a great friend that I've run away every other time I've come to see her. Not to mention what I did to Toji and Kaworu...'

The nurse went into Asuka's room for a few minutes, then came back out. "You can go in now. I'll close the door so you can have some privacy, but you can hit the call button by the bed any time if you or she needs help."

"Thank you," Shinji said quietly.

"I'll be by in about half an hour to check on you two," the nurse said, closing the door behind her.

Asuka was lying on her side in the room's only bed, facing away from the doorway and dressed in a simple white hospital gown. There was an intravenous tube in her left arm. A rack of electronic devices next to the bed monitored her breathing, heart rate, and brain activity.

She looked like nothing quite so much as Sleeping Beauty. So calm, so peaceful... and so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at her.

Shinji stood next to the bed, feeling as if he should take her hand in his, but fearing what the reprisal would be if he were to do so without her permission. He took a moment to collect his thoughts before starting his confession.

"Asuka, a new pilot named Kaworu came last week. He and I got to be friends... He even said that he loved me - can you believe that? He turned out to be the last Angel though, and I... I killed him. He's the only person who's ever said they loved me, and I killed him!"

"I can't talk to Misato or Rei any more. Misato's become so cold since Kaji died, and Rei... I'm afraid of Rei. She's not the person we knew before Unit-00 self-destructed. I'm not even sure she's really human..."

Shinji was on the verge of tears, leaning on Asuka's shoulder for both physical and emotional support.

"Asuka, please wake up! I need your help. Wake up! Come on, this isn't funny... Wake up! Call me an idiot like you always do! Just... please don't leave me here alone... I need you, Asuka! Please wake up!"

Shinji was standing over Asuka now, shaking her roughly by the shoulder. Without meaning to, he shook her so hard that he rolled her over onto her back, pulling off some of the pads from the medical monitors and spilling her hospital gown open. Confronted by her naked form without threat of repercussion for the first time, Shinji could scarcely help or control what happened next.

Afterward, Shinji stared at the residue of his self-pleasuring on his right hand with a sense of utter disgust and self-loathing.

'I'm so fucked up.'

Fearing the nurse would return and find him in his current state, he hurriedly left the room.

-

Floating somewhere just on the edge of consciousness, Asuka could tell that she was moving by the rush of air past her and the blurry halos of light passing overhead. She could also make out bits and pieces of people talking around her.

"...under attack..."

"...still in a coma...can't sync..."

"...safer...than anywhere else."

'I'm still alive?'

The motion stopped. She was... lifted into a seat? She could feel something warm and viscous flowing over her, smelling of blood.

'LCL? Why am I back in the Eva?'

Time passed. Asuka was surrounded by darkness once again, but she could hear a gentle feminine voice whispering to her.

Asuka dear, it's time to wake up. You have work to do... **We** have work to do.

Suddenly Asuka was shaken violently, and she could hear the sounds of explosions nearby. She screamed, more terrified than she had ever been in her life.

'I don't want to die.'

/ You're still alive... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ You mustn't die yet... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ You must live... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ I won't let you die... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ I'll protect you... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ You're still alive... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ I won't let you die... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ You must live... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ You mustn't die... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ Please die with me... /

'I don't want to die.'

/ Don't kill her... /

Asuka saw a sudden, terrible vision of herself as a desiccated, worm-ridden corpse.

**'I DON'T WANT TO DIE!'**

/I'll protect you... I'll always protect you./

Asuka felt a surge of warmth and love, the like of which she hadn't known since...

'Mama! You've been here all along?'

Seemingly in response, the long-slumbering form of Evangelion Unit-02 awoke and spread its AT field, its four eyes blazing.

'Mama!'

Eva Unit-02 rose from the lake that had been hiding it like an avenging angel, roaring in triumph and lifting the warship that had been floating above it with its mighty arms. The ship's keel began to snap under its own weight . Artillery fire from positions along the shore of the lake rained in, and Unit-02 used the ship as a shield and then counter-attacked by tossing the entire ship at them. The ship slammed into the lakefront and collapsed upon itself, igniting its ammunition magazines and obliterating everything within several hundred meters.

Unit-02 leapt out of the water as more missiles and artillery fire began to fall where it had been standing. Asuka willed the massive bio-machine to execute a complex airborne pirouette to dodge the remainder of the incoming projectiles, her face a mix of determination, exhilaration, and pure joy.

'Mama! Now I understand the meaning of the AT field! You've been protecting me all along, always watching over me!'

Unit-02 landed on its feet as a pair of passing bomber aircraft launched gigantic cruise missiles at it. The first missile caught the Eva squarely in the face without detonating, but the Eva managed to block the second by punching through the missile's warhead. The fuel tanks of both missiles then exploded, destroying them but leaving the Eva unscathed.

'We were always together, Mama!'

Further rocket and artillery fired rained in on Unit-02 from tanks and VTOL aircraft, but none had sufficient force to even scratch the Eva's paint. Asuka's attackers finally realized the futility of attacking the Eva directly and concentrated their fire on the huge cable which fed the Eva's hungry power core. Asuka swore under her breath as the activation timer began counting down from five minutes.

'Even without my umbilical cable though, I've still got twelve thousand plates of fortified armor, and my AT field!'

Enemy fire bounced off the Eva's armored exterior like raindrops of fire. Unit-02 made a sweeping gesture with its arm as it raised its AT field between itself and a group of five attacking VTOLs, exploding their incoming rocket fire in mid-air.

'There's no way I can lose, not to the likes of you!'

Unit-02 reached out and slapped at the nearest VTOL, crushing its cockpit and spinning the vehicle about its vertical axis. The Eva then grabbed the crippled VTOL by its tail and swung it like a outsized baseball bat at one of its mates, smashing them both in the process. A third VTOL moved in behind the Eva and peppered its back with rocket fire, to which the Eva responded by spinning on one leg and dropping a hammer kick through the the offending aircraft's fuselage. Still holding the remains of first VTOL's tail section, Unit-02 threw it at the fourth, which could not get out of the way fast enough to avoid sharing the first's fate. The last surviving VTOL moved in and tried to keep the Eva at bay with rocket fire, but the Eva smashed it with a roundhouse kick.

'Alright, who's next?'

Asuka looked up and saw a group of delta-winged Eva transport aircraft high over the battle zone around Tokyo-3. Dropping from them were a squadron of nine white Evangelions, of a design completely unlike anything Asuka had ever seen before. The new Evas fell a few hundred meters before they unfurled huge sets of wings and began to circle around NERV Headquarters.

'The Eva series? They've been completed?'

The nine new Evas, marked 05 through 13, landed in a ring around Eva Unit-02 and folded their wings. As she got a closer look at them, Asuka was repulsed by their appearance; unlike the vaguely humanoid heads of the older Evas, the mass-produced Evas had smooth, unarmored, eyeless heads almost reminiscent of a whale, with monstrous jaws seemingly fixed in perverse, joyless grins. Each carried a huge double-bladed lance.

Misato's voice came over the comm channel. "Listen up, Asuka. I want you to destroy the rest of the Eva series. Shinji will be there as soon as he can, so hang in there."

'"Destroy the rest of the Eva series", huh? Is that any way to talk to somebody fresh out of the hospital? Nine units in three and a half minutes... that's 20 seconds each with time to spare!'

Asuka screamed as she willed Unit-02 to charge the nearest of the Eva series. As the mass-produced Eva crouched to engage her, Unit-02 leapt over the other Eva and used her momentum to shatter the other Eva's skull, landing just behind it on hands and knees. The effectively beheaded Eva remained standing for a moment, as if it hadn't realized it was dead, then fell backwards onto Unit-02's back. Unit-02 hefted the fallen Eva's body overhead and snapped its spine, drenching Unit-02 in blood.

'Erste.'

Tossing the first mass-produced Eva's corpse aside, Asuka willed Unit-02 to tackle a second mass-produced Eva into the lake and hold it underwater. Unit-02 drew its progressive knife and stabbed the other Eva through the head, snapping part of the blade off in its skull. The mass-produced Eva shuddered briefly before going limp in the water.

Without missing a beat, Unit-02 charged across the lake to attack a third Eva, extending the blade on its progressive knife as it went. As the mass-produced Eva tried to bring its lance around to bear on Unit-02, Unit-02 slashed one of its arms off, sending its lance skittering off to one side. Unit-02 tried to wrestle the other Eva to the ground but shattered her progressive knife in the process.

'Shiesse!'

The mass-produced Eva tried to push Unit-02 off of it by grabbing at Unit-02's head. Unit-02's legs struggled to get leverage as she forced the mass-produced Eva onto the ground and wrapped its powerful arms around the mass-produced Eva's neck. Finally, Unit-02 pulled back hard and snapped the mass produced Eva's neck.

As she dropped the third mass-produced Eva's body, Asuka spied a fourth leaping down at her with its lance at the ready. She willed Unit-02 to roll out of the way and toward the lance dropped by her previous opponent, then stood and readied the massive weapon. Both Evas paused for a split second before swinging their lances. The lances were as heavy as they were ungainly, and so when each time the blades did cross, both Evas were driven backward by the impact of the other's weapon.

"Damn, they're persistent!" Asuka snarled aloud. "Of course, that idiot Shinji is nowhere to be found!"

'Hopefully that will light a fire under his ass to get up here... He's got to be listening!'

Unit-02 kept hammering away at the mass-produced Eva with the lance it had commandeered. Finally, she was able to drive the other Eva's lance out of the way long enough to deliver a killing blow to the mass-produced Eva's shoulder. Blood fountained from the stricken Eva's shoulder as the lance blade bit into its heart and lungs.

A fifth mass-produced Eva approached Unit-02 from the side, but Unit-02 dispatched it easily with a single powerful blow that literally tore it in half. Another rushed her, only to be thrown back missing a leg from a lance blow. A seventh leapt at Unit-02 as she was recovering from the lance swing and tackled her to the ground, knocking the lance from her hands. The mass-produced Eva straddled Unit-02's waist as they grappled, leering at her with that horrific grin.

Asuka snarled and decided to try a heretofore untested weapon. She willed Unit-02 to position the mass-produced Eva's head over her right shoulder plate, then punched a button marked "Point Defense". The top of the shoulder plate split open to reveal seven cylindrical launch compartments, which fired spikes into the mass-produced Eva's head. The mass-produced Eva was thrown backward off of Unit-02 as the spikes pierced its skull. Asuka grinned at the point defense weapon's fearsome effectiveness.

Unit-02 rushed one of the two remaining mass-produced Evas and tackled it into a hotel building built into the side of a hill. As the mass-produced Eva crashed through the building's fascade, Unit-02 grabbed its neck and tore its throat out. "I cannot be defeated!" Asuka roared in triumph. "Mama is watching over me!"

Unit-02 yanked the mass-produced Eva's body out of the building and hurled it at the last of the Eva series. "This is the last one!" Asuka screamed as she charged her remaining opponent. She closed on the mass-produced Eva, which was still dazed from the impact of its fallen comrade, and punched through the dead Eva's corpse. Straining to reach through the dead Eva's corpse, Unit-02 wrapped its fingers around the last Eva's core and squeezed as hard as it could. The last of the Eva series struggled for a few seconds before it sighed its last and collapsed.

'Hah! With 10 seconds to spare!'

But just as the last of the Eva series went limp, Asuka caught the briefest glimpse in her peripheral vision of something coming at her at incredible speed. She willed Unit-02 to tear its arms free from the bloodied remains of the last two of the Eva series and wheel around to face the incoming object. As it got close, Asuka could see that it was one of the Eva series' lances and immediately willed Unit-02 to raise its AT field, stopping the object in mid-air. She gasped as the suspended lance's form began to ripple and shift, into a distinctive dual pronged shape...

'The Lance of Longinus...?'

The lance tore through Unit-02's AT field and pierced the Eva's head just left of center, where a human's left eye would have been. Asuka screamed and clutched at her face as blood began to pour from her left eye socket. She tried not to think about the possibility that her eye might have actually burst.

It was an extremely inopportune time for Unit-02's battery reserves to run out, but nonetheless run out they did. Unit-02 toppled backwards, its head still impaled. The lance had driven so far through Unit-02's head that its points hit the ground before the Eva's body did, leaving the Eva supported in a strange almost-reclining position. Asuka continued to scream incoherently as she futilely worked the control sticks, hoping against hope that Unit-02 would somehow reactivate.

'No! No! Not now! Please Mama, not now!'

Suddenly Asuka felt searing pain the likes of which she had scarcely imagined, as if she were literally being torn apart. Something was on top of Unit-02, dismembering it. She could dimly make out the shapes of wings close above her, as if there were more of the Eva series than she had originally thought... or the defeated mass-produced Evas had somehow reactivated.

"I'll kill you... I'll kill you... I'll kill you..." Asuka muttered over and over again desperation, as she tried in vain to will Unit-02 to move. She focused on her rage and frustration as she mentally pled with her mother's spirit in the Eva.

'Please Mama, please don't let it end like this!'

Finally, the great bio-mechanical beast let out a roar and start to reach out feebly toward its attackers, which Asuka could make out circling overhead. Something then slammed into Unit-02's arm at enormous speed, splitting it in half lengthwise... and through the haze of hate and pain she was in, Asuka thought she saw her own arm split in half as well.

Asuka had one last coherent thought before, mercifully, she fainted:

'Shinji, why didn't you come...?'

But it was not the end.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES: 

This was originally going to be called "The Last Day"; I decided to change the title fairly late in the writing process, but I think the new title fits better. Sorry it took so long to get this out; my list of excuses ranges all the way from a Christmas ice storm to jury duty! I also had a bit of, um, "fun" keeping QuickEdit from devouring punctuation for no apparent reason...

There's one more chapter coming, "Forgive Me", which will be about Asuka's experience in Instrumentality (based on both _End of Evangelion_ and episodes 25 and 26).


	5. Forgive Me

"Forgive Me"

by AHGrayLensman

Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of of "Understanding" (Evanescence/Ben Moody & Amy Lee) are similarly the property of their respective authors. Please don't sue me for borrowing from them a little.

"Spoken"  
'Thought'  
/ Mental image /

Rated R for profanity, mature themes, and sexual references.

Many thanks to faithanne for pre-reading this.

* * *

In my time at NERV, I saw and heard some pretty horrific things. None  
of those things, absolutely **none**, compared with Shinji's scream when he  
found the ruin of Eva Unit-02. It was the scream of someone who has had  
absolutely everything worth holding onto in their life torn away from them  
before their very eyes, and it still haunts my nightmares from time to time.

When the Mass Production Evangelions captured Unit-01 and initiated  
Third Impact a few minutes later, I remember quite vividly that  
Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said something to the effect of "The fate of  
humanity now rests in the hands of Shinji Ikari." At the time, I couldn't  
think of anything more horrible to say. It was not that I had a poor opinion  
of Shinji's abilities -- quite the opposite! -- but rather the impolitic cruelty  
(to borrow a phrase from Jane Austin) of forcing such a huge burden on  
someone so young who had already suffered so much.

When he said that, I looked at Shigeru and asked him if we'd done the  
right thing. His reply was suitably cryptic for a NERV officer: "How the hell  
should I know?"

Dr. Maya Ibuki, _Ground Zero at Third Impact_, Tokyo-2 University Press, 2023

* * *

Asuka found herself sitting on what felt like a folding chair in a darkened room. It was a welcome, if somewhat confusing, change for a girl whose last memory was the excruciating pain of being synchronized with the Evangelion which held her mother's soul as it was dismembered.

'Where am I? I thought... I'd died? Is this Heaven? Maybe it's Hell?'

Suddenly a spotlight shown down on her. In the glare, she could see the familiar silhouette of a girl roughly her own age...

"Rei!" Asuka asked tentatively.

"Pilot Soryu," Rei said quietly, nodding.

'You're dead!'

"Is this Heaven, or Hell?" Asuka asked.

"Neither." Rei replied flatly.

"Well, if this isn't Heaven **or** Hell, exactly where are we?" Asuka asked with a certain amount of frustration.

Rei sighed softly before she answered. "You misunderstand. We are both still alive. However, Third Impact has been initiated, and all human souls are merging together. This is what Commander Ikari has had in mind all along. This is Instrumentality."

"But wait... Rei, I saw your Eva explode! How can you still be alive?"

"The Rei Ayanami you knew was the second. I am the third."

"What!" Asuka asked incredulously.

"I am the third version of a genetically engineered being, created by fusing the DNA of Dr. Yui Ikari and Lillith, the Second Angel," Rei replied. "However, that is not important now. Through Lilith, Ikari has been given control of mankind's destiny in Instrumentality. He can choose whether all souls will continue to merge together or return to separate existences."

"Well, that's just great! Once again, the fate of the human race is in the hands of that bonehead!"

Rei sighed again. "I sometimes wonder why Ikari cares for you so much, when you obviously think so little of him."

Asuka was furious. "If Shinji cares about me so fucking much, why were you the one who saved me when that thing raped my mind? And why didn't he come when I was fighting the Eva series!"

The answer to her second question immediately flashed before them, as if projected on a movie screen:

/ Unit-01's cage filled with Bakelite. Shinji huddled in a corner, hugging his knees and weeping in grief and frustration. Maya's voice: "Shinji, Unit-02! Asuka is... Oh God, Asuka!" Unit-01 finally smashing free of its own accord, almost crushing Shinji in the process. /

"He couldn't get to his Eva?" Asuka asked quietly.

"No, he could not," Rei replied flatly, "even though Major Katsuragi gave her life to ensure that he made it there safely."

"Misato is... dead?" Asuka muttered, not quite grasping the enormity of what she said.

Rei seemingly ignored her reaction. "Ikari cares for you, but he also fears you. He fears that you will toy with him and then reject him, as you have before."

"I've never..." Asuka started to reply, until she thought back to their abortive kiss on the anniversary of his mother's death. "How did you know?"

Another vision flashed before them. At first, Asuka thought she was seeing her and Shinji's kiss from a third-person point of view, but something about it wasn't quite right:

/ A ghost-Asuka railing at Shinji: "You don't understand anything. Just stay away from me! " /

/ Shinji, sheepishly: "I do understand..." /

/ The ghost-Asuka, railing again: "You couldn't possibly, you moron! You really think you can ever know me? You think you can even help me! I can't believe how arrogant you are! You will **never** understand me!" /

"That... that isn't how it happened!" Asuka cried out.

/ Shinji, frustrated: "How can I ever understand you if you won't say anything? You never talk to me, but you expect me to understand you... That's **impossible**!" /

/ Ghost-Asuka, enraged: "Idiot! I know all about your little jerk-off fantasies of me. Go ahead and do it like you always do... I'll even stand here and watch! If I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want **anything** from you." /

"That's not the real me..." Asuka muttered, as the scene began to change into something more like the argument that had driven her from their apartment.

/ Shinji, more forcefully: "Then try being nice to me for a change. You're just hiding behind that smile, intentionally keeping things ambiguous! Nobody seems to care if I live or die... For God's sake, just give me a kind word! Don't leave me alone! I want to help you, Asuka... I want to be with you." /

/ Ghost-Asuka: "Then don't do anything. Don't come near me. All you ever do is hurt me." /

/ Shinji, desperate: "Asuka, please help me! You're the only one who can!" /

/ The ghost-Asuka, cruelly: "Liar. Anyone will do... You don't care who it is! You're afraid of Misato and the First Child! You're afraid of your father and mother, too! So now you come running to me, because that's the easiest way to avoid being hurt! You've never even loved yourself... You're all you have, and you've never even learned to **like** yourself!" /

"That's not the real me!" Asuka cried frantically.

"But it **is** the real you," Rei replied. "It is the only 'you' that you have willingly allowed Ikari to see, and it is that part of you which he fears."

/ Shinji, increasingly agitated: "Help me. Somebody, please help me. Help me... Don't leave me alone! Don't kill me!" /

/ Ghost-Asuka, coldly: "No." /

/ Shinji, enraged, begins to throttle the ghost-Asuka: "Nobody has ever cared about me me... so they can all just die." /

"He hates me..." Asuka said dejectedly.

"He is hurt and afraid," Rei replied gently. "He fears that everyone for whom he has ever cared has deserted him."

More visions flashed before them in rapid succession:

/ A makeshift control room. Gendo Ikari, Fuyutsuki, and an older woman crowd around a terminal. A small boy leans against the glass of the observation bay window, his look of joy turning to horror as his mother is taken from him before his eyes. /

/ A train station. A small boy crying. Abandonment. Fear. The beginnings of self-hatred and detachment. /

/ A silver-haired boy with red eyes. Acceptance. Love...? Betrayal. Indecision. A tightening of the hand, and a sickening splash. Guilt. /

/ A hospital room. Loneliness. Desperation. A well-meaning act that goes too far. Loss of self-control. Pleasure followed by self-loathing. /

/ An elevator door opening. Misato, badly wounded. Words of encouragement. A kiss, and the promise of more to come. The elevator door closing. The muffled sound of an explosion. /

Despite all her attempts at self-control, tears streamed down Asuka's face. "Rei, he's going to let us all die, isn't he...?" she asked fearfully.

Rei shook her head. "He thinks that the life he has experienced is the only route his life could have taken. You and I can show him another possibility."

Asuka took a split second to compose herself before quietly saying, "Tell me what I have to do."

* * *

Asuka found herself outside the apartment... only somehow, she knew she didn't live there. She knocked on the door, and it was answered by a woman in her late thirties who bore a striking resemblance to Rei. "Good morning, Asuka. Shinji's not up yet... You can go in and wake him if you want.

"OK, thanks Mrs. Ikari!" Asuka replied cheerfully as she headed into Shinji's room. She was just about lean over him and yell in his ear when he rolled over to face her and opened his eyes. "It's about time you woke up, stupid!"

"Oh, Asuka, it's just you..." Shinji replied between yawns.

"**Just** me?" Asuka roared. "I come over here every morning to make sure that **you** aren't late for school, and this is what passes for gratitude from you!"

"Yeah, thanks, whatever," Shinji said dismissively as he rolled over. "Just let me sleep a little longer."

"Get up, you lazy bum!" Asuka yelled as she grabbed Shinji's bedding and started to drag it off of him. To her chagrin, at least part of him appeared to be up... "You pervert! I didn't mean to get that up!"

"Hey, it's morning! I need to take a leak or something..." Shinji shot back in embarassment.

'This is kind of fun... He's actually standing up for himself for once!'

Asuka could hear Shinji's parents chuckling to themselves in the dining room as he got dressed and she continued chiding him. "Come on stupid, hurry up! We're gonna be late!"

"Jeez Asuka, you're being such a pain in the ass this morning... Did you start your period today or something?"

"What?" she yelled as she slapped him semi-playfully.

'OK, fun or not, that was out of bounds!'

"Mrs. Ikari, we're leaving now!" Asuka called cheerfully as she and Shinji headed out the door. Shinji mumbled something probably intended for his mother as Asuka pushed him out the door. Once they got down the stairs, Asuka looked at her watch and immediately broke into a run as she realized that they were likely to be late after all. Shinji also started to run, trying to keep up with her.

"Hey, isn't there supposed to be a new transfer student starting today?" Shinji asked breathlessly as they kept running.

"Yeah, there are a lot of new people moving here because this city's going to be the new capital," Asuka replied.

"I wonder what she's like," Shinji said dreamily. "I hope she's cute!" Asuka couldn't help scowling at that.

'Damn it, you are **my** Shinji! I refuse to share!'

As Asuka reached the end of a block and began to run across the crosswalk, she caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision. She looked back, just in time to see Shinji collide bodily with a girl about their age with shoulder-length blue hair who was coming from the other way. Asuka stopped and went back to make sure Shinji was alright. The other girl appeared to have landed on her butt with her legs splayed out such that, intentionally or otherwise, Shinji got a pretty good look at the girl's underwear as she picked herself up off the ground.

"Sorry, gotta run! I'm really sorry!" the other girl said breezily as she scampered off in the direction of their school.

"Wow..." Shinji said dreamily as he watched her run off. Asuka simply growled disgustedly to herself.

'Hellooooo, which part of "**my** Shinji" was unclear?'

Somehow, Asuka and Shinji managed to make it to their classroom with a couple minutes to spare. Shinji of course wasted no time in recounting the "collision incident" to his fellow stooges Kensuke and Toji, who listened in rapt attention.

"What!" Toji exclaimed excitedly as Shinji got to the climax of his tale. "Did you see her panties?"

"Well, it wasn't a really good look," Shinji replied with a sly look on his face. "Just a little flash."

"Jeez, you have all the luck!" Toji said. "Why can't I ever... ow!" he screeched as Hikari grabbed him by the ear. "What'd you do that for?"

"Mr. Suzahara, just what **were** you talking about, anyway?" Hikari barked in her official Class Representative voice. "Now go change the water in the flower vase!"

"You're so mean..." Toji whined as he went off to do his assigned punishment.

"What was that?" Hikari sniffed. Asuka, who had been watching the whole sequence of events unfold from the seat behind Shinji, was heartily amused.

"Hikari has Toji wrapped around her little finger," Shinji mused out loud.

"Look who's talking..." Asuka muttered as she rolled her eyes.

"Are you saying that I'm easily manipulated?" Shinji asked in reply.

"Nope," Asuka retorted, "merely stating the obvious."

"How do you figure that?" Shinji shot back.

"It just is," Asuka answered with a smirk, "so get over it!"

"What did I do to deserve this?" Shinji asked of no one in particular.

Any further bickering was cut short of the sound of squealing tires and brakes outside, announcing that their teacher had finally arrived. "Hey, it's Miss Misato!" one of the boys in the class called out, and all the boys started rushing toward the windows.

'Only three minutes late today... That must be some kind of new record for her.'

This had become something of a morning ritual in classroom 2-A. Their new teacher was female, in her late 20s, beautiful... and perpetually late. Every morning she came roaring into school five to ten minutes late, and every morning virtually every boy in her class would rush to the windows to "greet" her as she walked into the building. Most of the boys were none too subtle about the fact that they just were trying to look down her blouse to catch a glimpse of her (reportedly impressive) cleavage.

Asuka and Hikari looked at each other and said in unison, "What a bunch of shameless perverts!"

A few minutes later, Miss Misato entered the room, whereupon Hikari immediately ordered the class to stand and bow. As the students returned to their seats, Miss Misato motioned to someone standing in the hall. "Listen up, gang! We have a new transfer student this morning, and I want you all to make her feel welcome."

Asuka's jaw dropped as the new girl walked in, and from the corner of her eye she could see Shinji do the same. It was the same blue-haired girl that had plowed Shinji over earlier. "I'm Rei Ayanami. Nice to meet you all!" the girl said cheerfully... then she caught sight of Shinji. "You! You're the pervert who was looking up my skirt this morning!"

"Hey, that's not fair!" Asuka shot back. "You practically flashed him!"

"Who're you to come to his defense, Red? Are you two an item or something?" the new girl responded slyly.

Asuka pulled back in a rare state of embarassment. "Well, I... you see, we're just good friends..."

"Hey, we're in the middle of class!" Hikari interjected. "Please be quiet."

'Whoa, that was close! Thanks, Hikari.'

"No, this is just starting to get interesting," Miss Misato said, "Please continue!"

'Aw, crap...'

And so it continued, Shinji slouching further and further in an attempt to hide underneath his desk as the girls' war of words escalated...

* * *

Asuka found herself back in the darkened room, next to Rei. The screen in front of them began to fracture and crumble. She thought she could hear Shinji's voice in the distance: "I understand now. This is another possibility for me, one that doesn't require me to pilot the Eva. Maybe reality's not so bad..."

"Ikari has chosen," Rei said with a contented smile. "Humanity can return to individual existences if they wish, starting with you and him."

The space between Asuka and Rei began to widen, as if they were somehow drifting apart.

"Pilot Soryu... Asuka, please take care of Ikari," Rei continued, her tone becoming more insistent and concerned. "He may be... confused by some of the things he saw during Instrumentality. He will need your help."

"Rei, you're going back too, aren't you?"

Rei sighed again. "Perhaps some day, but for now I must remain here and help those who wish to return find their way back. That will be my penance for my part in Third Impact."

"You love him, don't you?" Asuka asked hesitantly.

"Of course," Rei replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "At a genetic level, he is my brother."

Asuka was so surprised by Rei's straightforward admission that, for just a second, she had to wonder if she'd somehow wandered onto the set of a _Star Wars_ movie when she hadn't been paying attention.

"What he feels for you is much stronger than what he feels for me, though," Rei continued as she started to fade from view. "It was the possibility of being with you that convinced him to return..."

* * *

When Asuka came back to herself, the first things she noticed were the insistent pressure on her windpipe and the burning sensation in her lungs. Through the haze covering her remaining eye's vision, she could make out a blurry image of Shinji kneeling over her, his hands wrapped around her throat. His face wore the same rictus of hate he had during the horrific parody of their last argument that she'd seen during Instrumentality.

'Shinji, please, that wasn't the real me! Please don't do this!'

The pressure on her neck was unrelenting.

'Shinji, please... I'm sorry! I swear I'll be nice to you from now on... Please don't do this!'

Summoning the last of her strength, Asuka reached up with her mangled right hand -- somehow, inexplicably bandaged -- and touched Shinji's face gently. She felt the pressure on her throat lessen, then release altogether. Something wet fell on her cheek, and she could hear Shinji sob and begin to weep as he got off of her.

'He's... crying?'

"Feel... sick..." Asuka whispered hoarsely after taking in a deep breath. She lay on her back for a few minutes, just breathing in and out. Finally she sat up and looked at Shinji, who was sitting off to one side of her, crying softly.

Shinji looked at her in terror and began to scoot back away from her. "Asuka, I'm so sorry... I don't know what came over me... I... I should go..." He stood up and made as if he were about to run away.

"Shinji, please don't go..." Asuka said loudly as she could, which was barely above a whisper. "Please don't leave me alone."

Shinji froze in his tracks and slowly turned around. "I could've killed you... and while you were in the hospital, I..."

"I know," Asuka replied hoarsely, cutting him off. "It's OK. I know you didn't mean for it to happen, and I... I don't want to be alone right now. Please don't go."

Shinji sat back down warily, making sure to keep some distance between her and himself.

"You know, you could sit a little closer if you wanted. I don't bite... much," Asuka said with a slight smile. Shinji moved a couple feet closer, but he stayed out of her arm's reach. Part of her desperately wanted to tease him about that, but she was afraid he was in such a fragile state that she might drive him away for good if she wasn't very careful.

They sat there for a while looking at each other, neither saying anything, just taking comfort in each other's presence.

Asuka finally broke the comfortable silence with a question that had been bothering her ever since she woke up: "Shinji, do you hate me?"

"No, of course not!" he replied.

"Well, I would understand if you did," Asuka said with a tinge of sadness on her voice. "It's not like I've ever been all that nice to you."

"Yes you have!" he responded, almost indignantly. "You made that SDAT for me while I was trapped in Unit-01, didn't you?"

Asuka was completely taken aback. "You never said anything about it, so I just assumed you didn't like it..."

"No, I love it! I never said anything because, well, the time never seemed right..."

They lapsed back into comfortable silence for a while, each of them ruminating on the possibilities opened by this exchange. Shinji pulled his SDAT player out of his pocket and looked at it with a small, contented smile.

Shinji's smile faded away as he spoke again. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help when you were fighting the Eva series. I tried, but there was nothing I could do..."

'You know, I could've gone the rest of my life without being reminded of that.'

Asuka winced and fought back the urge to say something nasty. "Shinji, it's... it's OK. You did your best."

"But it wasn't good enough! When I finally got the the surface and saw what'd happened, I... I thought I'd lost you..." He sobbed as he hung his head, tears streaming down his face again.

Asuka moved next to Shinji and put her uninjured hand on his shoulder. "Shinji, look at me," she said quietly. He raised his head slightly, just enough to make eye contact with her. "You haven't lost me; I'm right here. See?" she asked. He nodded quickly, seemingly afraid to do anything else.

They settled into silence again, although it was decidedly less comfortable than the previous two instances. Not wanting to let it deepen too much, Asuka was once again the one to break the silence: "I'm cold... Can I lean against you to warm up and get some sleep if I promise not to tease you about being such a pervert?"

"Y...yeah," Shinji replied, his voice a roughly equal mix of excitement and fear.

Shinji moved so that his back was braced against a nearby post. Asuka sat down just in front of him and leaned back, allowing her head to rest on his left shoulder. Shinji gasped audibly in surprise when she reached around with her good hand and pulled his left arm around her waist, then wrapped her left hand around his. A satisfied smile drifted across Asuka's face as she began to get comfortable.

'This is... nice. I think I could get used to this.'

After a while, Shinji shifted a bit and disengaged his hand so he could put the earphones for his SDAT player in his ears. "Can I listen too?" Asuka asked quietly. Shinji wordlessly replied by handing her the left earpiece. He returned his arm to its former position around her waist, and the fingers of their left hands knit together again.

Asuka relaxed further as she heard the words to her favorite of the songs that she had put on Shinji's SDAT, seemingly an eternity ago:

_Lying beside you,  
Listening to you breathe;  
The life that flows inside of you  
Burns inside of me._

_Hold and speak to me  
Of love without a sound.  
Tell me you will live through this,  
And I would die for you._

_Cast me not away,  
Say you'll be with me,  
For I know I cannot  
Bear it all alone._

Asuka and Shinji both soon drifted off into the first completely undisturbed sleep either had experienced in months.

* * *

We found Shinji and Asuka the next day, sitting together by the shore of  
the sea of LCL. At the time, no one was quite sure what happened, but  
we knew that they had somehow managed to stop Instrumentality before  
it destroyed humanity forever.

I don't know what took place between Shinji and Asuka in Instrumentality.  
Neither of them like to talk about it, and I wasn't close enough to them to  
see for myself. I do know this, though: they've scarcely left each other's  
sides since then. For me, that speaks volumes.

Maya Ibuki, _Ground Zero at Third Impact_

_

* * *

_

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTES: That's it, folks; this is the end of the "Understanding" story arc. Thanks for reading this far; I hope you've enjoyed it.


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